To think if you rely on a food bank you may need to compromise your vegan principles?

[LondonUnited]

I’m a supporter of our local food bank and am on their mailing list. I received an email earlier to say that they were supporting a vegan family and were therefore asking for specific food donations, including Oatly oat milk, various nuts and seeds, specific types of beans, etc etc.

I may get flamed for this but I couldn’t help thinking that - allergies aside (and I have a milk allergic child so I do get it) - if you need a food bank to feed your family, you might need to compromise on diet slightly? For a start, Oatly Barista is lovely and all that, but Aldi or Asda oat milk is also ok and half the price. And that the odd bit of tinned fish may be easier to access from a food bank than Brazil nuts and chia seeds...

I agree with you, OP

@LondonUnited

I’m a supporter of our local food bank and am on their mailing list. I received an email earlier to say that they were supporting a vegan family and were therefore asking for specific food donations, including Oatly oat milk, various nuts and seeds, specific types of beans, etc etc.

I may get flamed for this but I couldn’t help thinking that - allergies aside (and I have a milk allergic child so I do get it) - if you need a food bank to feed your family, you might need to compromise on diet slightly? For a start, Oatly Barista is lovely and all that, but Aldi or Asda oat milk is also ok and half the price. And that the odd bit of tinned fish may be easier to access from a food bank than Brazil nuts and chia seeds...

No. Because it's on a par with complaining a Muslim family aren't suitably grateful for three tins of Spam and two of Corned Beef.

You could be judging a Hindu, Jain or a Buddhist family, as many are vegan.

Or they could be vegan because of allergies in the family. I eat a lot of vegan food despite eating meat and fish, purely because of allergies and medical conditions. If I ever eat out, I'm going to have the vegan option, as it's significantly less likely to have things that make me ill in it. A carton of UHT milk is of zero use to me. Packets of things in cheese sauce are of no use to me. A steak and kidney Fray Bentos is no use to me. Beans and pulses, some oat milk and seeds would be brilliant, however.

Don't know if it's been said but donating dried pulses to a food bank may be of limited use as they take a lot of energy to cook. The ideal is something that needs little to no fuel to prepare. Yes dried chickpeas are nutritious but a pot noodle is more use to someone in a hostel with only a kettle or whose electricity is about to go off.

I did try to say as much DrCoconut. But no posts by food bank workers seem to get any responses. Too much pfaffing about oat milk and middle class angst!

Hi curious, I haven't RTFT as just got in from work. I actually want to support food bank users with dietary requirements having had my eating world blown apart by coeliac disease recently. How's best to do that? I have received food parcels (a long time ago now) and know what it's like to live on the very edge. Now it's time to pay the help I got forward.

Just donate some beef pot noodles, hob nobs and Heinz lentil soup. Quick, vegan and cheap so job done 🤷‍♀️

How's best to do that? There's no one answer to that!

The ONLY correct answer is to look up your local food bank and ask them what their requirements are. Depending on how they are connected to other organsiations they may be able to direct you to another group that you could help. Once you start looking you wil find a large network of help all arond you. You should be able to comfortably tap into it somewhere.

That's how I managed to spend 5 years teaching single dads and their kids how to bake

Heinz do a lentil soup?

@CuriousaboutSamphire
I’ve posted several times with info about working in a foodbank but have largely been ignored, I have tried to be informative.

Odd isn't it? In a thread about food banks!

It's like the reality about the many and varied food banks across the UK are inconsequential when compared to a rollicking argument about oat milk

I think the only direct response I did get was a misunderstanding when I said it was a shame that we are having to increase what we give.

Let's not forget that veganism is a choice.....and not a need..first world problems

@Spinachtastegud

Breakfast cereal eating is a choice and lack of it is a first world problem.

Last time I looked, breakfast cereal cost more per kilo than most nice cuts of meat.

But heyho.

Our food bank often requests 'luxury' items or crappy sugar filled stuff.
If people are in need of food they need filling, nutritional food, not stuff that is bad for them!
I tend to donate vegetarian stuff, but never even considered milk (maybe as I don't drink it!). I'm sure own brand stuff would be fine!

if you need a food bank to feed your family, you might need to compromise on diet slightly?

If you believe that meat = murder, I wouldn't call tucking into tinned fish a "slight" compromise.

Any more than I would like to eat human flesh, no matter how poor or "first world" I was.

People get quite sanctimonious any time it is suggested that someone asking for food assistance should be budget-conscious the way everyone else has to be.

Yes, there are some people genuinely down on their luck. They’d probably have more sense than to ask for expensive stuff.

And then, as a food bank worker pointed out upthread, there are others who ‘need’ to be bailed out because of ongoing bad lifestyle choices.

Taking away people’s accountability is never a great strategy.

@ Butchyrestingface

Well clearly you have never really been hungry in the truest sense of the word...

@Spinachtastegud

@ Butchyrestingface

Well clearly you have never really been hungry in the truest sense of the word...

You would happily eat dog meat then?

The first part of my childhood was spent in a poor country and hunger was an everyday event, actual hunger, not being an hour later for dinner. I would much rather be hungry than eat a dead animal.

Let's not forget that veganism is a choice.....and not a need..first world problems confused

@Spinachtastegud would you say that to a Muslim or Jewish person for not eating pork, or even a vegetarian who didn't want to eat a steak?

Eating meat and dairy is a choice too, just because more people do it doesn't make it any more valid.

Well clearly you have never really been hungry in the truest sense of the word...

Clearly you know nothing about me.

You would happily eat dog meat then?

The first part of my childhood was spent in a poor country and hunger was an everyday event, actual hunger, not being an hour later for dinner. I would much rather be hungry than eat a dead animal.

How far does one take the "clearly you have never really been hungry in the truest sense of the word" argument anyway?

Should the country's poor go off and prostitute themselves to disgusting men in cars in order to buy food? After all, beggars can't be choosers and all that...

If not, does that mean they've never really been hungry in the "truest" sense of the word?

if you can't afford to pay even for someting basic, you can't expect to get something premium

I disagree.

You have there a purely materialistic approach to giving.

"It is in giving that we receive."

I live in a municipality in the US where the schools have not reopened this year. All students regardless of family financial situation got a free, brand new chromebook for school work a few days ago, plus a new whiteboard and set of whiteboard markers. All of this was to facilitate equal access to learning and the morale boost that comes from the egalitarian approach. My taxes paid for that. I am very happy to support the purchase of chromebooks that ensured that no student would have to rely on an old, whatever OS, beaten-up laptop their family could find on freecycle. Of course the students might be able to do their work on equipment like that. But knowing that the schools administration sees each individual child as 'worth investing in' makes a huge difference to the children whose families might have ended up buying the used laptops.

Just because people have a financial problem doesn't mean they or their children don't deserve nice things.

Frankly, if someone would think twice about donating to a food bank because they believe their donation of cheaper, non-branded food would be sniffed at, they need to get a hold of themselves and step back emotionally from the whole business.

Giving isn't about the donor feeling good because the receiver is feeling grateful. It's about the giver being grateful that he or she has the money to spare to donate - whether they can afford to donate an item or two or two hundred items, because regardless of the scale of the donation, the donor is in a better off position than those using the food bank.

Giving is about hoping that the receivers will find something in their basket that restores their faith in humanity and helps them feel their family isn't being kicked when they are down. If that means a carton of Oatly, then why would you begrudge that?

If people are in need of food they need filling, nutritional food, not stuff that is bad for them!

If they are so much in need that they don't have enough to feed themselves, then they need more than just the nutrition in the food.

Vegetarianism does not equal veganism and neither of these are a religion.

@Spinachtastegud

Let's not forget that veganism is a choice.....and not a need..first world problems

So is being Hindu, or Muslim.

Tell that person over there that they have to eat non-halal food now they are relying on the food bank, because it's actually their first world problem they have choosing to be Muslim.

@SimonJT that's interesting. When I lived in a country where actual starvation had once been commonplace, people still ate pretty much everything a couple of generations later - snakes, bugs, rats, lizards, cats, dogs.